During routine overhaul, the axial force and torque in each valve stem in a nuclear power plant need to be monitored. Currently, pre-formed gages on a thin metal strip are used for this purpose. These gages are expensive and cannot last until the next overhaul. The current work attempts to fabricate similar gage that are ready for field use. The detailed requirements to ensure good accuracy during fabrication are analyzed. Practical gages have been manufactured and tested. The measured results agreed well with theoretical and experimented strain measured by sticking strain gages directly to the specimens. The durability of the gage varies from 30000 to beyond 60000 loading cycles depending on the adhesive used. Possibility of using fiber Bragg grating instead of resistance strain gage has also been investigated. The latter has the advantage that it can survive ionizing radiation